


through the darkness of future past

by LadyVictory



Series: come fire walk with me [1]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:15:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4669664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyVictory/pseuds/LadyVictory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is all you have left of Laura. You saved her life for the girl you both loved (you saved her life because you care about her too, but you are in no way ready to deal with that) and you can’t fathom letting her go.</p><p>It’s up to you.</p><p>It’s always up to you.</p><p>///</p><p> In which Carmilla lives, Laura does not, and Danny is left to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	through the darkness of future past

**Author's Note:**

> AN 1: Unbeta'd, so mah bad for the mess.  
> AN 2: None of these fine students - living, dead, or undead - are mine. I make no money off of their suffering.  
> AN 3: I will always be terrible at titles and summaries.

It takes you a week to realize that no one has called Mr. Hollis about Laura. With the administration in shambles, it would fall to her friends to inform her next of kin – her only kin really.

Perry is busy with LaFontaine’s recovery, too busy to realize, and though Laura is – was, though Laura _was_ – well liked, there is no one else left to take charge of the situation. No one who knew her well enough to have her father’s number (‘ _just in case, ya know?’_ ).

So, it’s up to you.

It’s always up to you.

His grief is quiet but powerful, an almost physical presence in the room. You stand by the fridge as he packs her things, and it has been a long time (not really, but you are doing an admirable job of blocking out the last few months) since you have felt so small and useless.

Not since you were twelve and two feet shorter and covered in warm, sticky blood and half deaf with the sounds of metal striking flesh.

You flinch and force yourself back into the present, because you have absolutely no right to think about _that_ while a father trembles over the artifacts that make up what is left of his only child.

His tears are silent as he packs her things, and by the time he turns and thanks you (for what you aren’t sure but you nod and want to thank him back, for her, for everything she was to you), they have stopped completely. His sadness is a stone – a mountain – that merges with yours, which is a swirling ocean, and crushes you both under the quicksand weight.

He leaves you some of her things – objects that you don’t think he can really understand what to do with. Her Tardis mug, two of her favorite hoodies (he takes the other 5) ( _‘one for every day of the week!’_ ), the quilt you bought her on impulse at the little thrift store on campus, her yellow pillow…

You try to speak, to say thank you and that you loved her so much, but you can’t force the words past your hot, swollen throat. He nods, though, like he understands, brow furrowing the same way that Laura’s did when she broke up with you – angry and sorry and confused and resigned – and then he leaves the room forever.

 

////

 

You spend three days in Laura’s room, on her bed wrapped in her blankets and hugging her pillow to your chest. You rewatch the videos from start to finish, on loop.

The first time you watch them through, you feel nothing.

The second time you watch them, you grieve. You grieve for yourself – for what could have and should have been. Maybe, if you had told her how you really felt (if you had told her that she hung the moon in the sky with her tiny, expressive hands, and made the sun rise with her mischievous smile), maybe she would have chosen you. Let you protect her. Maybe if she knew, she wouldn’t have left you for that stupid fucking undead bitch. Wouldn’t have died. (Except that you know she died for you; for all of you abstractly, but really for you, you, you, you, you…)

 

////

 

The sixth time through – you start it immediately after the fifth, with only a small break to vomit your meager dinner of cookies and cocoa into the toilet ( _‘see you at the violence’_ ) – the sixth time you grieve for Laura Hollis. For the girl she was, not the one you imagined or projected onto her, but for the real Laura Hollis as she is revealed through her own words, and, you grieve for the woman she will never become.

Laura Hollis had been so beautiful and good and righteous and strong. Perfectly imperfect. The kind of girl who would risk her life – who would die – for the Truth and for Goodness and most of all for the people she loved. And she did love you in her own way (you saw it on her face when she shoved you aside, saved you from the Dean’s enraged claws with her own body). She loved that blood sucker, too, like she was a real person. She loved that stupid undead girl, who came in seconds too late (you were too late too, too slow, and you’ll never forgive either of you) to save her but jumped anyway, leaving you alone to _handle it_ , to try and pick up the millions of shattered pieces.

 

////

 

Sometime between the eighth and ninth time through, Perry finds you – sobbing, hysterical, pale and weak with exhaustion and hunger, clutching the yellow pillow. She forces you to eat something with nutritional value and leads you into her room to sleep in her bed, next to LaFontaine, who is looking better but still weak.

You wake up screaming after two hours, startling the other two red heads as you bolt into the bathroom. Your stomach has managed to process enough of the food so that it’s mostly bile that hits the tiles (you don’t quite make it to the toilet).

They look at you with pity as you slink out of the room with mumbled apologizes after cleaning up after yourself.

 

////

 

The tenth time through the videos you cry silently when Carmilla speaks of Ell, of the stars, of that blood filled coffin. You finally let yourself see the young girl (younger than you or even Laura) that was torn cruelly from the world long before you were born; the girl who was forced to endure decades drowning in darkness for daring to love; the girl Laura saw beneath the eye liner and snark, who killed her own mother to avenge the girl you would have given anything to protect. You grieve for Mircalla and Carmilla Karnstein, because they both deserved so much better.

 

_(‘See you at the violence.’)_

_////_

 

You decide to record a final video. Laura would probably call it the triumph video, but feels more like an obituary.

“So… A funny thing happened,” you start, voice shaky, eyes darting around, anywhere but the camera so you don’t have to see yourself. You are gaunt and pale and the bruises and cuts on your face look angry, accusatory.

“We won. We won and… and Laura and Carmilla are dead.”

It may be the first time you have ever said Carmilla’s name out loud.

You stop then, breathing hard, trembling, unsure of how to proceed. Laura would know, but Laura isn’t here; you’re all alone again.

Kirsch bursts into the room, saving you from yourself.

“Summer Bro, come quick! Something’s moving in the Pit!”

You move so fast, you break the desk chair. You grab your bow and quiver, which have taken up residence behind the door. You forget to turn off the camera.

 

////

 

You break three fingers and bruise your ribs getting her out of the Pit.

You set her gently on Laura’s bed, as if the soft sheets and pillow will hurt her, while Perry frets at the two of you over your shoulder and LaF leans heavily against the doorjam.

“Blood,” you rasp, voice rusty from crying and heaving and lack of use. You clench your teeth against pain and desperation. “She needs blood.”

Perry gets the hint and springs to the fridge to get the ‘Soy Milk’ (you’ve been too much of a mess to start cleaning the things left behind).

You cradle the smaller girl to you and pour the thick red stuff down her throat, nose crinkling at the stale cold-burned smell, and you just pray to all the gods you can think of that it is enough.

Nothing happens.

“No, no, no. Come on Elvira, don’t be dead,” you beg.

She doesn’t move.

You toss the carton aside and shove your wrist into her mouth, skin tearing on her razor edged teeth.

“Please Carmilla,” you whisper, vision blurring with tears. “Don’t be dead.”

Her mouth moves against your wrist, and you grunt at a sudden suction. It is not pleasant, but in this moment it is the most wonderful thing you have ever felt.

She gasps and sputters, sitting up and away from you. Behind you, Perry squeaks in surprise.

“Well… that was a kick…” You know she is hoping for cool and unaffected, but all you hear is dazed confusion.

You yank the stupid, beautiful vampire to your body so hard that you feel your ribs creak. After a few seconds of stiffness, she settles into you, breathing deeply against your shirt.

“Laura…” she murmurs, and you know she smells her on you and thinks you were somehow able to save her.

You are sobbing – deep, body wracking sobs – unable to respond.

Carmilla pulls back, still weak but strong enough to break your hold, frowning at you.

“L-Laura?” she asks again, but you can tell that she is remembering the order of events now.

You hold your breath – mostly to stop the crying – and shake your head.

You hadn’t thought there could be a sight more broken than your own reflection in the mirror the last few days, but you were wrong.

She crumples and you catch her. You shove all of your grief into a deep, dark hole in your chest, and you let hers wash over you.

She cries. She whimpers and keens like a wounded animal, body shivering, trembling, vibrating with sadness. You imagine this is what you sounded like as you watched the videos over and over, but already you can’t remember.

Perry moves towards the door, gently supporting LaF, who looks worried.

“We’ll just, uh, leave you two… If you need anything, we’ll be next door.”

The curly haired girl guides her friend from the room against weak protests. LaF looks at you, and you try to smile reassuringly as they disappear behind the closing door.

Carmilla rounds on you, face a mask of rage.

“How dare you?” she growls, eyes flashing like black fire.

You sputter, unsure of how to respond.

You tried to save her, you did. You staunched blood and breathed into dead lungs for almost half an hour (until Kirsch pulled you away from her cooling body with a gentle, _‘she’s gone Summer Bro’_ ), but in the end, there was nothing within your power to do.

"How dare you bring me back?”

She is lightning fast. Her hands are at your throat, but they are loose, almost as if she is trying to pull herself up, or you closer.

"How dare you!”

You have no answer that she will like, because you would do it again.

She cries harder, silently now, curling into herself as her hands slide off you and wrap around her own body.

You guide her down onto the bed and slide the yellow pillow under her head. It still smells like Laura, and she nuzzles into it like a kitten, breathing as deep as her sobs will allow.

The room is suddenly too hot and too bright and too tight and small for you. You feel your chest squeezing your battered ribs, and your heart stuttering. You move to go, to run, to escape, but Carmilla’s hand whips out and catches your still bleeding wrist, stopping you.

“No… you can’t… you brought me back… you don’t get to leave…” she gasps at you.

You feel like you will die if you have to spend even one more minute in this room, but you look down and you see a young, terrified eighteen year old girl whose world has just come down around her _again_ (a girl who has lost her mother, _again_ , and her beloved, _again_ ), and you know that even if it kills you, you will stay.

She’s right, anyway; you brought her back, so she is your responsibility.

You crawl into the bed behind her and pull her close, ignoring injuries old and new.

The smell of Laura – sunshine and cookies and something floral but light and fun – surrounds you both, and you manage to drift off to sleep.

You dream about their deaths – about Laura, and Carmilla and the little boy whose name you will never say again. You dream about being too late. You wake up screaming.

Cool hands stroke your overheated cheeks and pull you into a chest with no heartbeat, and for a moment you don’t know if you are still dreaming.

“Easy, Xena,” a shaky voice murmurs, and though things are anything but, you breathe in the scent of leather and currants, copper and old paper, and force yourself to relax tense muscles.

“Sorry, I… nightmare,” you stammer, embarrassed by your neediness but not steady enough to pull away yet.

“Not exactly thrilled to wake up next to you either,” she snaps, but it sounds more tired and hollow than hostile.

“Huh?” you ask, confused and more than a little – irrationally – hurt.

You saved her life, but she owes you nothing; you don’t want her to feel as if she does. Still, her harsh edges grate against your vulnerability.

“‘Carmilla, no!’ You were screaming it over and over. Even after all this…” she trails off, swallows hard.

You want to tell her, to say _‘no, I wasn’t scared of you, I was scared for you. You didn’t kill me, you died, and I couldn’t save you this time,’_ but all that comes out is a single, bruising sob.

You clamp your mouth shut and hold your breath; you learned this trick a long time ago.

She starts to move away, and it is your turn to panic at the thought of being separated.

She is all you have left of Laura. You saved her life for the girl you both loved (you saved her life because you care about her too, but you are in no way ready to deal with that) and you can’t fathom letting her go.

Looking at your desperate face, still weary, Carmilla leans close again. After you don’t flinch, she settles her head against your shoulder, hand coming up to rest over your rapidly beating heart. You release a sign of relief and pull her closer.

You held Laura like this, what seems like a million years ago.

You drop a kiss onto her head automatically – you are someone who draws comfort from physical connection – and freeze, horrified. She doesn’t seem to notice, though, or she is tolerating your odd, grief induced behavior, and after a few tense moments you relax.

She begins to purr. It is not a happy noise – sputter-y and high in her chest, almost a whine – and you remember reading somewhere that cats purr in distress as well as delight. You run your free hand through her hair and up and down her back until the awful sound stops and she relaxes in sleep again.

You want desperately to rest, but you stay awake now, to guard her against her own dreams and fear. You know there is no one else left to do it.

It’s up to you.

It’s always up to you.


End file.
